Author: Aren Cambre

My crime fighting for the day

This morning, as I was backing out of my driveway, I saw an aqua blue, four-door 1995 Chevrolet Cavalier with very dark tint race off from the trailer of the mowers who were mowing a neighbor’s lawn. The Cavalier raced off quickly, and the mowers’ expressions showed that something wrong just happened.

I was able to catch up to the criminal at the traffic signal leaving my neighborhood. I got his license number. The guy may have wanted to go south, but I think he noticed I was recording his license number, so he instead darted north, almost causing a rear end collision as he raced into traffic. I didn’t try to keep up with him because he was driving erratically, obviously fleeing.

I reported this to 911 within minutes as a suspicious activity call, and I also called the owner of the mowing company. He confirmed that $400 of equipment was just stolen.

I hope that since I reported the license plate number, something good may result from this.

I was able to get more of the car’s details through www.publicdata.com. It can be a good idea to purchase searches from this site!

EDIT: I called the lawn mowing company owner a few days later. He said that the police were not able to do anything because nobody got a good visual description of the thief.

85th percentile speed

The commonly accepted method of setting speed limits is to unobtrusively measure the 85th percentile speed of free flowing traffic. This is a speed that separates the 15% fastest drivers from the other 85%.

The theory behind this is twofold:

  1. Speed-related safety problems are concentrated in the fastest 5%, so the 85th percentile speed clearly criminalizes those 5% and allows for a small enforcement cushion.
  2. If you plot all measured speeds on a graph, you will get a bell curve. The 85th percentile speed is the break in the upper end of the bell curve.

Interestingly, in actual practice, speed limits are often set in the 30th to 50th percentile, meaning that anywhere from 50% to 70% of all drivers on any roadway are criminalized.

Seems goofy, doesn’t it?

Good news for Dallas-area motorists

According to a Dallas Morning News article about HOV lanes on US 75, the plans have changed for HOV lane implementation between I-635 and north Allen.

The HOV system would have been a single, counterflow HOV lane. Now it’s going to be like the HOV lanes on I-635: one dedicated HOV lane in each direction.

It’s good news if you don’t like speeding tickets: it eliminates the left shoulders, making it more difficult for cops to sit behind a radar gun.

Tavis Smiley and Social Security hysteria

After work I went to an SMU Tate Lecture Series student forum featuring Catherine Crier, Ward Connerly, and Tavis Smiley.

It was interesting to see the interaction between Ward, an avowed red state guy, and Tavis, an avowed blue state guy. The discussion was mostly about race preferences and affirmative action. The only apparent point of agreement is that affirmative action programs should focus on socioeconomic conditions. The 10 ton gorilla, however, was how to classify deserving socioeconomic conditions.

I was disappointed with Tavis’s frequently populist and illogical arguments. Despite his agreement on the socioeconomic factor, he continued to support race factors, saying that the vast majority of people eligible under socioeconomic factors are minority. Huh? So what are you saying? Poor whites can’t get anything? Rich blacks should still receive benefits? I don’t get it.

Tavis also happens to be the host of the Tavis Smiley Show, a radio program that broadcasts on NPR affiliates. Yesterday he announced that he is not renewing his contract. At today’s lecture he explained that he felt that NPR is resistant to change and would not put forth the effort necessary to make his show a success. That seems fishy. Regardless, I have enjoyed his NPR show, and I hate to see him go.

At one point, Catherine Crier interjected doom and gloom hand-wringing, citing her interpretation of Running on Empty, a scathing criticism of the fiscal state of the US. Sure, the longer certain economic indicators are ignored, the bigger problem we are facing. But a “perfect storm” of colossal proportions? Far from a certainty.

One of the biggest rationales for this “perfect storm” is a theorized generational “war” between retirees and workers. In a few decades there will only be two workers paying Social Security benefits for each retiree.

Big deal.

Reform or not, Social Security is not going to bankrupt the county, because taxpayer will not allow it. This is a country of laws, and the laws can change! (What a surprise!) In this scary future, guess which group has a larger electoral base, the workers or the retirees? Workers, 2 to 1.

The productive classes will not stand for crushing Social Security taxes. Sorry, retirees, but the losers will be those of you who did not save enough for retirement, not the workers. Retirees will absolutely be outvoted. Better start saving now!

The Dutch have lost it

Few things make me sick to my stomach. This article is one of them: Netherlands Hospital Euthanizes Babies.

The Netherlands is exploring killing terminally ill babies. The practice has already begun at one hospital.

This is wretched and horrific.

It’s one thing to deny expensive, futile, non-palliative treatments to terminal patients. It’s entirely different to affirmatively kill patients.

Legalized euthanasia for the willing is bad enough. Killing off babies is despotic.